Improbabilities
by Ranta
Summary: The team is preoccupied with their math homework, and Odie can't figure out his extra credit. And what's up with Neil all of a sudden? Most likely a one-shot.


**This is something that I've wanted to write for a while, but I have a really bad habit of putting these things off! I'm not really happy with it, but hopefully it's alright. Just as a warning, this fanfiction contains large doses of math, and as such I take no responsibility for any head trauma that may occur. ;] And also, seeing as I know absolutely nothing about calculus, sorry if I made any mistakes with that!**

**And finally, as a disclaimer: I only own Class of the Titans in my dreams. :]**

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"This stupid calculus stuff is impossible!" Odie groaned, slamming his pencil down on the table with a sigh. Six heads jerked up in unison and six pairs of eyes stared at him, all taken aback. Because, after all, it was _Odie. _And _math homework._ And you didn't need to know much about Odie to know that his name along with the words 'calculus' and 'impossible' rarely (if ever) applied to the same situation.

It seemed unfair, Archie noted, that while he and his teammates were struggling over their mandatory consumer math, Odie was complaining about the difficulty of extra credit. Because, although no one was actually forcing the genius to fill out the worksheet that had been set in front of him, he was treating it as if it was the sole determining factor of his grade for the semester. All in all, it was ridiculous. It had taken Archie almost a full ten minutes to get his stupid graph done (y=x2: he always forgot to plot the points in the second quadrant), and he had reached the point where he was in no mood to hear anyone griping about (not) having to differentiate y=xx.

"So put it down and shut up." The warrior groaned. "I'm trying to work." Jay looked up from his fractions to glare disapprovingly at Archie, but it went unnoticed.

"Not yet." Odie grunted. He picked up his pencil again and jotted a few numbers down, erasing them again just as quickly. "Dammit!" He cried loudly. "So close."

"Watch your language." Athena's commanding voice came from within the kitchen, drifting into the living room alongside the smells of her cooking. Herry's stomach growled loudly and he closed his workbook with a sigh.

"I don't get it." He proclaimed.

"Me neither." Jay said, sighing in defeat.

"Thank _Zeus_ I'm not the only one!" Said Theresa, looking relieved.

"There won't be a test, will there?" Atlanta asked worriedly. "I'm not ready for a test."

"No kidding." Agreed Archie. "This is so damn-"

"LANGUAGE." Athena shouted again.

"SHUT. UP." Odie suddenly shouted, looking uncharacteristically agitated. "Can all of you just… just _please_ shut up." Upon hearing an angry growl from within the kitchen, he quickly added; "Uh… not you, Athena." He waited a moment (until the goddess returned to chopping vegetables) and then looked sheepishly at his teammates, all of whom were staring at him in shock for the second time that day. "Um… I'm sorry." He said finally. "I'm just really worked up, is all. This should be so much easier than it is, but I just can't-"

"Can I see?" Interrupted Neil, and for the first time everyone realized that he hadn't complained or whined or griped about anything in a good half hour. Atlanta briefly wondered whether it was some kind of record.

"Uh… sure…" Muttered Odie, reluctantly sliding his notebook across the table. Neil looked at it, appearing to be only half-interested. His homework lay in front of him, and Odie couldn't help but notice that it was… _finished_? He looked around the room and saw everyone else was still hard at work, having seemingly forgotten his earlier outburst. _That's weird…_ he thought, shaking his head. _Since when does Neil actually __do__ anything, let alone math?_

"What's the sine of 45 degrees?" Atlanta piped up from her position beside the couch. Archie, who had managed to wrestle her out of her former seat on said piece of furniture, prodded her with his toe as he responded.

"Who cares?" He groaned, at the exact same moment as Neil said;

"One over root two."

In the moment that followed, there was deathly silence in the brownstone. Even the sound of Athena slicing onions subsided.

"That's actually _right_." Odie said in awe when his teammates looked to him for the correct (and presumably different) answer. "Neil, how did you…?"

"Lucky." Shrugged the blonde. He easily brushed it off, grinning his signature supermodel grin as he glanced up from Odie's assignment. "Or maybe it's because I'm so brilliant that-"

"_We get it._" Archie said, pointedly cutting Neil off in favour of not having to listen to a twenty minute speech on how stylish, handsome, smart and supposedly humble (Ha- as if) he happened to be. But while his friends all laughed and/or groaned at Neil's antics, Odie merely pondered the truth behind the explanation that he'd been given. Sure, Neil was lucky. But it would take amazing, improbable and almost impossible luck to pull a number like one over root two out of thin air. And so maybe, just maybe…

"Hey Neil;" he prompted, hoping to test his theory; "did you get that problem yet?"

"Nope." Came the response, as confident as ever. "But I think that I may have gotten even more gorgeous in the last ten minutes, if that's possible. My hair feels _shinier._"

Odie, his spirits dampened somewhat at having been proven wrong, failed to point out that one cannot _feel _luster. He grabbed the assignment that Neil passed back to him and looked at it to see if any changes had been made. But it remained exactly the same as it had been, save for the tiny, attempted self-portrait drawn by the model himself in the upper hand corner.

"Finished!" Theresa said suddenly, breaking Odie out of his thoughts. She looked at the clock on the mantle and did a double take. "Okay, it's official. We get _way_ too much homework! Well, I'm off to bed. Night, guys!"

"I'll walk you!" Jay offered, having just closed his own notebook. Theresa smiled gratefully and the two teens vanished, shouting goodnights over their shoulders.

Atlanta stood up as well and made her way over to the stairs. "…I'll, um, walk you?" Archie offered nervously, stopping her in her tracks.

"I'll race you." She challenged with a grin, and in the next instant they were gone as well.

"I…I give up." Odie muttered finally. "I'll finish this tomorrow, I guess."

"Hey, don't take it too hard, buddy." Said Herry, standing up alongside the genius. The two said goodnight to Neil (who was too occupied with his mirror to respond) and made their way to their rooms.

It was a full ten minutes before Neil moved. Putting down his most prized possession, he reached for Odie's homework once again, which had conveniently been left lying open on the kitchen table. He fell silent save for the occasional scratching of his pencil as he worked. _What would happen, _he wondered, _if the guys knew that I actually liked this stuff? _And he did, it was true. Neil's third love, right after mani-pedis and himself, was math. He'd always thought that his friends were the stupid ones, really. I mean, sure- his mirror was great. He could stare at it for hours on end, but did they really think that it was all he did? Everyone needs more than one hobby. "Done." He finally whispered, setting down his pencil with a satisfied smirk.

He fell asleep easily that night, mirror in hand, contented by the fact that at least he- if no one else- knew that it had been his brain and not his luck at work.

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**Thanks so much for reading! I hope you liked it. And of course, happy New Year! :]**


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